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The Official F-19 Stealth Fighter Handbook

by Richard Sheffield

Takeoffs and Landings

Most players don't seem to have much of a problem with takeoffs, so I won't spend much time on them here. But there's one thing you might want to remember: The F-19 has a center of gravity that's well to the rear of the aircraft. Because of this, on takeoff the nose will come up well before the aircraft has enough speed to lift the rest of the plane. So don't assume that just because the nose will lift you're ready to rotate and fly. Keep an eye on the stall indicator bar on the left side of the HUD; don't try and lift off until the bar is below the middle indicator.

Quite a few people I talk to, both online and in person, seem to have trouble landing. In order to get those really high scores, you're going to have to learn to operate in the Realistic Landing mode. I'll try and cover landing procedures in some depth.

Getting Lined Up

The most important, and difficult, part of learning to land is learning how to get properly lined up with the runway. Imagine that the runway isn't a short concrete strip but a straight highway that extends for miles to the north and south. (Remember all runways and carriers in F-19 are lined up pointing north-south.) This is a long and wide highway, but you can only land on the portion near the base. If this were the case, getting lined up would be easy—you could just fly over to this highway, turn, and follow it all the way back to the base. You'd be perfectly lined up. Learning how to use a couple of the instruments you have on board will allow you to do this.

Once you learn the process, safe landings are no longer a problem.

When you first learn to land, the Instrument Landing System (ILS) may be more confusing than helpful, so I'll cover it later. For now we won't use it.

You need to start thinking about getting lined up early; 50 km isn't too soon.

Landing Procedure

An example is the best way to explain the landing procedure.

Here's the setup. You can recreate this setup and follow the procedure with the game. I'm flying the Strike Training Mission against Libya off the USS America. I've completed my mission against Tripoli, and its time to head home.

I level the wings on a heading of 000 and with the NAV cursor in the center of the scale. Perfectly lined up!

Fifteen kilometers out, my speed is connny down. I extend my flaps and check my lineup.

I cross the end of the runway at ten feet and cut power, keeping the nose up.

Coming in on such a shallow glide path isn't the way they teach it in flight school, but it's a good way to begin to learn about landing with this game. As you become more proficient, you'll want to land at a higher speed and use the steeper glide slope indicated by the ILS. “Tail dragging” landings as described above aren't good form, but if you're having trouble getting your bird safely on the ground, it's a good place to start.

A nice, smooth, touchdown!

Table of Contents
Previous Section: Maintaining a Good "Stealth" Profile
Next Section: The ILS